Nightmares
by treneka
Summary: A man no longer a man, and a boy never quite a boy discuss the dark side.


a/n: something old, reposted.

**Nightmares**

"Konzen!" Goku came awake suddenly, his heart pounding in his chest and his breath still gasping a warning he no longer understood. Something had been terribly wrong – something that could never be made right - but around him, the confines of the rented room were dark and still. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. Lying quietly on his bed, the boy stretched out his senses, seeking reassurance and solace from the ordinary safety of his surroundings. He ignored the fast-drying dampness on his cheeks.

"Are you all right?" The soft, unsleeping voice did not so much break the stillness as transform it. It penetrated the quiet of the room, turning silence into serenity. Almost unwilling, Goku felt the dream's terror fade at the touch of his roommate's concern. "Goku?"

"Sorry, Hakkai. Did I wake you up?" A slight, embarrassed guilt replaced the last vestiges of panic, and the youth shifted in his blankets to seek his roommate's form across the room.

"I was awake." Even in the darkness, Goku could see the faint smile gracing the older man's face. Hakkai was probably lying, but there would be no point in trying to prove it.

"Oh." He felt notions tumble around in his mind. He knew it was late. Very late. It had been dark when they reached the inn and darker by the time the healer had finished tending to their companions. By rights, the youth knew he should tell Hakkai that all was well, and convince him to go back to sleep. Even so, the dream had left him uneasy, and he didn't want to be alone. His cogitations were interrupted by the sounds of rustling sheets and bare feet settling onto wooden floor boards. "Hakkai?"

"Shh..." The healer stepped across the room with a graceful economy of motion. He paused by each of their companions, listening to lungs and feeling foreheads while the sole uninjured member of the group looked on. At last, Hakkai seemed reassured. He stood, stretching his back before turning away. In his bed, the youth closed golden eyes, and pulled his blankets tighter. He'd resolved to try to sleep and not bother the weary healer, when the soft voice once again reached his ears.

"Would you care to join me for a glass of milk? It might help us sleep." Milk was hardly his favourite beverage, but he wasn't about to refuse an offer of company. Restraining his eagerness enough to move quietly, he crawled out of bed and padded across the floor. Hakkai held the door for him and neither said a word as they walked down the pitch-black confines of the hallway, through the common room with its dimly glowing hearth to the moonlit expanse of the kitchen.

"Was it another nightmare?" the healer asked, as he quietly searched the cupboards for cups and a pan. Goku had been hunting for milk in the cool room, but he froze at the question. After a moment, he noticed a covered pail, and grabbed it rather than answer. Hakkai accepted the milk and Goku's silence. He smiled and poured a generous stream into the dented, tin-lined pan, checking the stove top for temperature with a practiced hand. Satisfied, the green-eyed youkai set the pan on a burner's edge. He pulled out a chair, adjusting it so that he could rest an elbow on the kitchen table while still within reach of the pan, and then slipped the monocle from his face to rub at the bridge of his nose.

"Sanzo's going to be fine, you know." Goku looked up, but was relieved to note that the speaker's eyes were still hidden behind his hand.

"And Gojyo?" Hakkai smiled at his young friend's concern. He considered teasing him just a little, but in the end, simply answered.

"He was more exhausted than anything. His arm should be good as new within a week." Deciding to try again, the healer caught the youth's gaze and held it. "And you?" He watched as Goku wrestled with his thoughts, looking away before finally sighing.

"Do you ever worry that you might be the one to kill them? I mean, that one morning you'll wake up with a pair of corpses instead of friends and blood that won't come out of your claws?" Goku was talking more to the table than to his friend. His golden eyes stared through the sharp-nailed fingers to some realm far removed from the polished wood. "I'm a monster, Hakkai."

For a moment, he had no response. The youkai who had once been a man leaned back in his chair, one hand absent-mindedly touching silver ear-cuffs after brushing wayward bangs from his face. "A man who dreams he is a butterfly, upon waking wonders whether the butterfly now dreams of being a man..." Seeing his friend's confusion, he smiled. "You are not a monster," he clarified. Then a strange honesty compelled him to qualify, "Or at least not any more than the rest of us."

"Sanzo's not a monster!" The response was automatic; the natural defense of a boy for his savior. That the boy was on the cusp of manhood seemed not to make a difference.

"Perhaps you're right," the healer conceded, his lips curving slightly at the selfless affection his companion maintained for the oft-times selfish monk. In the pan, the milk had reached a low simmer, and he withdrew it from the heat, standing to attend to his concoction. A small crock on the counter yielded two measures of honey, which he added to the steaming liquid. "But then, my point was that neither are you." Smooth fingertips took a pinch of nutmeg from the little jar he'd found, sprinkling the warm spice to steep in the milk.

"I dreamed about him dying, Hakkai," The young man's voice was barely audible over the quiet sursuration of milk poured into mugs. "I dreamed he was covered in blood and his eyes were getting all glassy and somehow, it was my fault."

"How did you kill him?" The healer's question was matter-of-fact as he placed the two mugs on the table. Goku stared at him in surprise before scrunching up his forehead in a near-caricature of trying to remember. By the time Hakkai had settled in his chair, the youth had given up.

"I dunno. I don't even know if it was me directly who did it, but it was my fault anyway, you know?"

For just a moment, old memories of a knife taunted the healer. He understood indirect murder, and his heart ached with the understanding. "I know," he said.

Goku nodded, accepting empathy from his fellow nightmare as he never could have from his other companions. Hakkai was always good that way. "It just felt so real, and the really horrible part was that way back in my head, part of me didn't care – was almost happy about it. It made me feel sick, and kinda scared." He shivered, then looked up with an almost defensive aura, challenging Hakkai to chide him for admitting fear.

"It was just a dream, Goku. That isn't who you are."

"Are you sure?" Golden eyes sought green ones over the edge of a half-raised mug.

"It's not like you to be so unsure of yourself. That must have been quite a dream." He gave a familiar half-laugh, but he didn't answer the question. They sipped their milk in a contemplative stillness.

"How do you know for sure you're not a murderer? How do you make really sure you never do something that bad again?" Hakkai paused in mid-sip. Abruptly the milk seemed too sweet and the honey caught cloyingly in his throat. The compulsion to hide behind a meaningless smile was nearly overpowering. They'd had this sort of discussion before, but never had his young friend struck so bluntly close to his own vulnerability. "Ah, Goku"

"I really need to know." The naked sincerity of his friend's request cut through all hope of pretense. Comforting platitudes died unspoken on Hakkai's tongue. The companions faced each other searchingly over a minefield of milk and honesty. Need for hope met the need to hide as truth and safety fought within the bounds of friendship, but the outcome was never truly in doubt.

Goku watched his sometime mentor's face as the man chose his answer. The merest hints of old pain and current uneasiness touched those composed features, while on the handle of his mug, the healer's hand clenched tight.

"I'm afraid there is no guarantee," he said at last, "only choice." He set down his mug with a rueful smile at the tension in his fingers. "Evil is always an option, but it comes at a very high cost. Remembering the cost, or finding things to remind yourself, is one way to guard against... unwise choices."

"Like Gojyo's hair?"

"...something like that."

"You remember the blood? The faces of the people you killed... Gojyo's hair reminds you of that, so that you won't do it again?" The words struck Hakkai like ice, crystallizing on memories and causing the very breath in his lungs to freeze. Piercing gold eyes nonetheless held him tethered on their need, and he managed a steadying breath with the weakest of smiles.

"Yes," he answered, hoping it would be enough, while knowing it would not. "The memories are my reassurance." He closed his eyes and replaced his monocle.

"What if you couldn't remember?" And suddenly, the bleakness of the youth's eyes made sense – the full horror behind his questions stood trembling in the light of comprehension. "I mean, you killed a thousand youkai, murdered, like, four hundred people, and for that heaven made you hang out with Sanzo for a month and change your name. What kind of god-awful thing did it take to make them erase my memories and lock me up for 500 years?" He rested his head on his hands and winced as his fingers touched the smooth gold of his limiter. "Did I destroy a country? Rip the wings off an angel? Did I kill a god?" His voice broke as a flash of remembered dreaming echoed in the words. "And whatever it was, how long will it be before I do it again?" Tiny drops of moisture darkened the surface of the table beneath his drooping bangs. "How long before it's Sanzo..." The youth became a boy in the grip of his own melancholy, and the boy's shoulders trembled ever so slightly with tears that the youth would not have wanted his older companion to see.

That was all it took, really. Hakkai felt his own fears and memories abruptly dispelled by the clear pain of his young friend. He smiled. It was not schadenfreude, but rather the knowledge that he was needed. Perhaps this, more than memory, was what kept Hakkai fighting, and Gonou buried.

"Sanzo will never let you kill him. He cares for you too much."

"You really think so?" Goku sniffed unattractively, but raised his eyes from their wallowing perusal of the tabletop. The healer smiled.

"It's only my opinion, and I wouldn't repeat it to him, but yes." He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his pajama bottoms, and proffered it.

"But I can get really" Hakkai sighed and leaned forward, pressing the square of cloth to the monkey child's nose. Disconcerted, Goku took it, and as he dealt with his nose and wiped his eyes, his friend continued.

"Sanzo would kill you first. He's told you that a thousand times, hasn't he?" Strange that such a fact could be a comfort, but simple truths tended to be the most effective ones when dealing with Goku. It didn't get much simpler than death.

"Yeah. He has," murmured the boy, looking suddenly sheepish for having brought it up at all.

"As for what you may or may not have done... Did you ever think that maybe your sentence was not entirely a punishment?" This concept was a bit much for Goku to wrap his head around. His eyebrows furled in confusion, but he'd learned that if he looked like that and waited, an explanation would usually be forthcoming. Tonight was no exception. "Heaven may have decided to punish you, but perhaps someone also wanted to give you a second chance. In the absence of memory, you are free to be whomever you choose."

"Okay..." Goku still looked more confused than consoled, but the self-pity at least was gone. Hakkai smiled and Goku returned it somewhat hesitantly.

"I'm sure you'll always make the right choice," the healer reassured his friend, taking a dose of his own reassurance. "But now, we should perhaps return to bed." He stood and collected the mugs. Goku brought the pan and followed him to the sink. The work of a moment saw all the utensils washed and dried, before the two returned to their room.

In their beds, the kappa and the monk continued to sleep soundly. Goku watched as Hakkai checked his handiwork one last time before crawling into bed. The earth child lay down, pulling the blankets close around him, but this time the soothing lethargy of warm calcium and warmer sentiment chased away the ghosts of nightmare and self-doubt.

"'Night, Hakkai," he said, already yawning.

"Sleep well, Goku," came the soft reply. Golden eyes and jade drifted shut together, and dreams dark, yet somehow poignant reclaimed the room.

_In the middle distance between awareness and oblivion, a golden kami holds tightly to a half-conscious stone monkey. Around them walls begin to tremble. An angel in what might have been a black-leather duster bares teeth at fate. A demon in white amusement readies himself. The door begins to split; the monkey opens his eyes for a last look at his friends. It's a nightmare, but the choice was always theirs..._


End file.
